


The Man with the Golden Touch

by Silver33650



Category: Fortnite (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25792510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silver33650/pseuds/Silver33650
Summary: AU since this was written before The Device event happened and this clearly isn't what happened; it was inspired by theories and leaks beforehand. The Seven choose their spymaster, and all the consequences that entails.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 1





	The Man with the Golden Touch

When my brother chose Midas, I knew he had made a mistake. There are only so many things a person can lose before he loses himself, and it was already far too late for Midas. He was a broken man from the start, his desolation clear in those empty eyes. One golden, one lost. Both hollow.

But my brother saw something else. "He is a man of determination, of singular purpose," he declared. "Perfect for a mission to tackle our greatest enemy."

"He is a man of deception," I countered, "and undeserving of our trust."

My brother laughed at that. Forever a man of mirth, my brother. "You always think you know everything, just because you've been everywhere. Even your experience has limits, brother."

That was certainly true, but despite his cheerful demeanor, even my brother was not immune to arrogance. "And you think that solving the theorem makes you a genius. But where did it get us? More in danger than before. Even an intelligent man makes mistakes. You are not as infallible as you think."

"And neither are you. No," he said, looking out at the lake. "Midas will lead the Agency, and we will watch with the same level of caution that is due to all who know our secrets. No more, no less, in hopes that he will trust us as much as we trust him."

Recalling that, perhaps it is my fault Midas failed after all, as I did not trust him in the least.

* * *

So he came to the island, the man with the golden touch. He came with his team and his chair and his golden gun, and built a grand headquarters on the center isle that flew our banner. Accompanied by four souls he'd handpicked himself, they built their bases in all corners of the land and prepared for the clash.

We spoke only to Midas, but it was clear to them all: Shadow will tempt you, to pull you to his side. even as the hundred fall to the land and vanish until only one remains, the call of the chaos agent will pulse through the island, whispering lies and promising the impossible, swaying you to fill his ranks.

We told Midas that some of them would fall, but he did not seem to believe us. He trusted them all too much. The cat, after all, had a statue of himself on his yacht. What further proof of loyalty was required there? "The others are much the same," he said. "Dedicated and true. I chose them for those reasons, and for those reasons alone. others may have been stronger or quicker, but only these have my trust."

So we trusted him, or at least, the other six claimed to. There was not yet proof enough to convince them otherwise.

* * *

While I myself was not surprised, it was quite a blow when Brutus turned Shadow at the end of the first week.

Midas was given the photo of him and Hazard, the one that we had taken from their lamp store in Retail Row. He stared at it for a few moments, then crushed it in his hand and turned it to gold. Though to me, with its ridges and bumps, it more resembled a hunk of pyrite. "Now I have a new paperweight," he said, but the betrayal clearly stung. "He'll be the last I lose." A bitter laugh. "Leaving for a woman. I'd never have guessed."

Ironic, with what was to come.

Another week passed, and TNTina was lost. It wasn't long after she turned Shadow that the Rig exploded, leaving it in ruins. "A mistake to leave her in charge of so much explosive material," Midas commented dryly, but said little else. He claimed not to know the source of the explosion, but I knew better. Did the rest of the Seven? Or were they still so sure that the ends would justify the means?

* * *

His cat did stay loyal, for a time. Then the merc came, and that was the end of that.

The mask over his statue's face, his henchmen partying under a disco ball. His prized yacht transformed into a rave. Midas flew into a rage. "I will speak to Skye personally," he said. "Her heart is too pure for Shadow. But she will not take the steps necessary to ensure victory unless I intervene and force her to take more drastic action. She is ours. I promise."

And the promise was kept, but the adventurer's coastal mansion warped into a high security prison, filled with those captured in the spy games. Here, I had to raise the alarm.

"These betrayals make him volatile," I told the others. "He is unpredictable and thus has lost our trust. There are others we can call upon. There is still plenty of time to stop Shadow."

But none of them listened, because they were too fond of seeing our enemies suffer. And I must admit, I savored the sight of the prison as well. I watched for so long that I alone saw the escape of one lone inmate.

Again, I raised the alarm, and this time, I had their attention. But they let Midas suggest a plan, and it was just what I expected.

"A device," he said. "One that will capture the storm and prevent it from being a variable in our future missions. Designed by my most trusted engineer, though she is unable to join us. What do you say?"

The Seven said yes, though only by aggregate. I said no, but I was completely outvoted.

* * *

Beneath the Agency, the cables traveled. around the hideout, down the elevator shaft, and through the boss's room, hooked up to the glass sphere set in its cage of steel. Midas sat at his desk and admired his work, counting down the days till activation. In the corner of the room, his record player sang, next to the picture of his greatest treasure: a woman with the shadow emblem on her chest.

The woman who had dreamed of the device, who had drawn it for the man with the golden touch, but who would never see it completed.

* * *

I warned them. "Who is she?" I pressed. "We must ask. We must know. Or we risk losing everything."

They refused to respond, because there was too much riding on the plan. They had seen the blueprints for the device, and for the suit that would go with it. "It could work," my brother reasoned. "But we will be on alert if it does not."

"It will not," I told them. "I know it."

They knew it too, but there was too much at risk. For across the lake ringing the agency, the shadows were gathering. They landed, they surveyed, they planned. They bolstered ranks at their safe houses across the island. Preparing for the moment to invade. The moment they would become the storm we feared most, stealing our agency and its secrets.

* * *

The hatches bubbled. The device pulsed ever stronger and brighter. And yet my pleas still went unheard.

"See how the storm phases have shifted," my brother said, bringing up the map. "It's working. When the time comes, it will work."

I delayed it, a little. I bought us some time. But the end would come, just as I feared it would.

* * *

The countdown began. Midas gave the command, and his henchmen obeyed.

It did not end well.

* * *

In the pit of rubble in the ruined agency, I found him, splayed on the ground in the suit, still purple and pulsing with the energy from the storm. He raged and he cursed me as the water rose up.

"You did not let me succeed," he snarled.

"Only because there is no world in which you do not fail," I told him sadly. For who cannot help feel remorse watching a man shrivel to a skeleton, even gilded as he was? Sentenced to sleep in the currents beneath the island he'd ruined, rising once every loop in hopes that his future could change on this pass. But it never would. "I'm sorry," I said, but all I got was a roar of pain and hatred. The last words of a man before he drowned in a sea of his own making. I wondered, would his engineer cry for him? Or was the rain the only tears shed for his plight?

It didn't matter, because the storm hated all things, and he was part of it now.

* * *

They call me the Traveler, for I have seen all the worlds. And in none of them does the man with the golden touch succeed.


End file.
